That vision may still pan out, but we’ll have to retake the old high before moving on to the new peaks. In any case, GSAM recently piqued our interest with the disclosure of some large positions it took in some small-cap companies as 2017 was coming to a close. The investment manager ate up shares of
Simply Good Foods
(SMPL) and
Del Taco Restaurants
(TACO), which have market capitalizations of $950 million and $470 million, respectively. GSAM also bought stock in
PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust
(PMT) and common units of
Archrock Partners
(APLP), which have respective market caps of $1 billion and $912 million.

Simply Good Foods was created in July of last year when a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) acquired an affiliate of Atkins Nutritionals, which makes meals and other food products aligned with the low-carb diet ideas of Dr. Robert Atkins. GSAM disclosed it held a 7.5% stake in Simply Good Foods, about 5.3 million shares, as of Dec. 31, up from 4.9 million shares held at Sept. 30. The company’s investor site still looks a little shaky (some elements aren’t filled out in the bare-bones setup), but Simply Good Foods has put on a brave face. In January, the company enlisted actor Rob Lowe as a brand spokesman. Fans of St. Elmo’s Fire and The West Wing could be the right demographics for low-carb diets.

Del Taco shares slumped 14% in 2017, primarily due to competition. When the restaurant chain crunched the numbers, it found that discounted offerings were eating into its outlook. The new year hasn’t brought a respite and competition remains fierce. GSAM saw something as the last quarter wrapped up and bought a million more shares of Del Taco, raising its stake to 2.3 million shares, a stake of 6%.

Excluding the hefty dividend, which now stands at almost 12%, PennyMac saw shares rise 9.4% in 2017. GSAM expects even more from the mortgage real-estate investment trust; it bought about 120,000 more shares of PennyMac in the fourth quarter, pushing its holdings to 3.32 million shares, a 5.1% stake.

Archrock, a natural-gas master limited partnership, sprung a few leaks in 2017. Common units slipped 20%, excluding distributions. With the common units already in the red for the year in the fourth quarter, GSAM bought 112,000 additional common units, bringing its investment to 4.5 million units at the end of the year, a 6.4% stake.

“On an absolute basis, equity valuations are indisputably high, particularly in the U.S.,” GSAM wrote in its 2018 Investment Outlook. “However, we estimate that equities are on the cheap side relative to macro conditions.” Now, they’re even cheaper. Let’s see if the buying comes back.

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